Car Aerodynamic Testing for Road

and Track
How to test drag, lift and downforce with low-cost,
accurate and easy techniques
This work is copyright Julian Edgar © 2020. Text: Julian Edgar Photos:
Julian Edgar

Edgar Media Pty Ltd PO Box 4072 Dalton New South Wales

Australia 2581

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Any unauthorised reprint or use of this

material is prohibited. No part of this booklet may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system without express written permission from the
author/publisher.

Warning: Testing should always be carried out in a safe environment

by a responsible driver.
The author

Julian Edgar, who has written more than 20 books, started his working life
freelancing for photography magazines. He then worked as a secondary
school teacher for eight years before leaving teaching and becoming a full-
time technical writer.

He edited a national Australian automotive print magazine before becoming

editor of AutoSpeed, an online car magazine. Along the way he wrote
extensively for Silicon Chip, an electronics hobbyist magazine, while also
contributing articles to publications in Australia, the UK and the US.

He has also worked at Executive Level in the Australian Public Service.

Formal qualifications include a Diploma in Teaching (Secondary), Bachelor
of Education and Graduate Diploma in Journalism. In addition to his book
writing, he co-owns training

company Communication Knowhow, a company that provides courses in

executive writing skills. Clients include government and major private
companies.
In the automotive field he has owned cars with two, three, four, five, six and
eight cylinder engines; diesel, petrol and hybrid petrol/electric drivelines;
front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive configurations; and
cars with single turbos, twin turbos and superchargers.

He enjoys aerodynamic modification of cars. He was the first automotive

journalist to extensively wool tuft cars and write about the results (starting
in 1989) and use Magnehelic gauges to directly measure aerodynamic
pressures (in 2000) - both approaches now widely used by amateurs. In
2018 he developed a technique allowing amateurs to measure car
aerodynamic panel pressures on the road and in 2020 developed a technique
allowing cheap and easy measurement of downforce and lift.

He has been electronically modifying his cars for about 25 years. Over that
time he has modified engine management systems, engine cooling systems,
turbo boost controls, electric power steering systems, auto transmission
controls, all-wheel drive torque split controls, stability controls, hybrid car
regenerative braking controls, and lighting and sound systems.

Julian has supercharged - and then turbocharged - a Toyota Prius. He has

also turbocharged a Honda Insight and fitted it with programmable engine
management, doing the engine mapping on the road from scratch. In
addition, the Insight has electronically-controlled, custom air suspension
that Julian developed and fitted.

Featured in this book, the Insight has extensive aerodynamic modifications

that reduce drag, give it measured downforce and improved straightline
stability.
Julian has an extensive home workshop that is equipped with a chassis
dyno; lathe; mill; MIG, TIG and oxy welding gear; metal folder and other
tools.

Julian lives in a hamlet 80 kilometres north of Canberra, Australia. He is

married to Georgina, a training company manager, and they have a son,
Alexander who is 16 years old. Also in the family are Victor the sheep and
Ar-Chee the cat!

Track cars?
This book is entitled ‘Car Aerodynamic Testing for Road and Track’ but
you’ll see few track cars in it! Why? Well, I most enjoy aerodynamic testing
and modification of road cars – that’s what I do. However, every single test
technique covered in this book can be used with race cars that are based on
passenger cars, and most of the techniques can also be used with open-
wheel race cars.
Chapter 1 - The approach
Many people are aerodynamic testing completely unaware that can be
performed without Let’s briefly look at each in turn – then, in later chapters,
we’ll cover them in much more detail.

having access to a mega-dollar wind tunnel. Therefore, when modifying the

aerodynamics of their road or race vehicle, they go by ‘feel’, by intuition or
by copying what others have done.

And, as with any area of car modification, taking these approaches is likely
to yield less than optimal outcomes!

After all, would you tune your engine’s air/fuel ratios without making any
measurements? Would you decide on spring and anti-roll (sway) bar rates by
copying what someone else did on a completely different car? When it’s put
like this, it becomes obvious that making aerodynamic modifications without
testing, measurement and analysis is a poor approach indeed!

So what has changed – why can you now measure your car’s aerodynamic
performance? In short, because the techniques covered in this book have
been developed, tested and proven in actual use.

None of these techniques is expensive, all can be carried out on normal roads
(or, in the case of a race car, on the track), and all are straightforward to
perform.

Of course, as with any testing, the techniques need to be done carefully and
rigorously. If you skip tests (for example, not performing two-way averages)
or make mistakes when writing down or calculating results, then the testing
will be worthless. All car testing requires concentration and care, and
aerodynamic testing is no different.

The different tests

This book covers the following tests:
• Airflow behaviour
• Panel pressures
• Airflow speed
• Lift/downforce
• Drag

Airflow easiest behaviour is one of the cheapest and aerodynamic tests you
can perform. It

involves sticking small pieces of yarn (e.g. wool) to the car and then driving
the car while it is being photographed or video’d.

The behaviour of the wool tufts then tells you about the airflow. When the
airflow is attached to the car’s surface, the tufts line up in neat rows,
fluttering only a little. When the airflow has separated from the surface, the
tufts whirl around, pointing in random directions.

In addition, where the flow is attached, the direction in which the tufts are
pointing show you the direction in which the air is flowing.

Wool tufting is used when determining the size of the wake (the area of
disturbed air behind the car), when assessing where spoilers and wings
should be placed, whether modifications have improved flow
– and many other applications.
Testing of airflow patterns using wool tufts on a Mercedes AMG GT. This
car shows separated flow behind the front wheel (bad!) and attached flow on
the bonnet / hood (good!) [Paul Lawford pic]

Panel pressures are measured by temporarily attaching a measuring puck to

the panel on which we want to measure the aerodynamic pressure. A
pressure tank, or pitot tube’s static port, is then used as the reference
pressure. The result is shown on an analog or digital gauge inside the cabin.
Measuring panel pressures shows us which panels are producing thrust or
drag, and which panels are producing lift and downforce. For example, we
can directly measure the changed aerodynamic pressures caused by adding a
rear spoiler – and in fact develop its height and shape to give us the results
we want.
A surface pressure measuring puck used to sense panel pressures. The puck
can be made or bought commercially.

Airflow speed is measured by using a tiny pitot tube temporarily attached to

the car. The difference between the two pressures (static and dynamic) from
the pitot tube are then displayed on a gauge inside the cabin. The higher the
difference between the two pressures, the faster the airflow speed at the
point where the pitot tube is located.

Airflow speed can be used when working out flow speed away from the
surface of the car (e.g. to work out the best height at which a wing should be
mounted), and also to provide the static pressure reference when measuring
panel pressures.
Low cost miniature pitot tubes sold for use on model aircraft can be used to
measure local airflow speeds.

Lift/downforce is best measured by monitoring suspension height. If lift is

occurring, the car’s body will be lifted on its springs – that is, ride height
will increase. If downforce is occurring, the car’s body will be forced
downwards on its springs, and so ride height will decrease.

By mounting sensors on the car’s suspension, we can therefore measure

whether lift or downforce is occurring, and by doing some further simple
testing, measure how much lift or downforce (e.g. in pounds or kilograms) is
occurring.
A suspension height sensor being installed on the front suspension. By
measuring average ride heights at different speeds, we can determine
whether aerodynamic lift or downforce is occurring.

Drag is measured by limiting engine power to a much lower value than

usual, and then measuring changes in the car’s top speed. For example, we
might limit engine power to only 15 per cent, giving a top speed in highest
gear of 100 km/h (~60 mph). If we then make a modification that reduces
drag, the top speed will slightly increase. If we make a modification that
increases drag, the top speed will be less. No change in top speed shows that
the change in drag is zero or very small. Speed is measured using GPS.

This technique is called ‘throttle stop’ testing because we limit engine power
by using a device that prevents the throttle being open very far.
Chapter 2 - Airflow testing with
tufts
Airflow testing using tufts costs almost nothing, is easy to do and gives
quick results. Tuft testing has been used in the aerodynamic development of
vehicles for about a century and remains as valid today as it was back then.
No professional aerodynamicist ever sneers at tuft testing – despite its
simplicity, the insight that can be gained from tuft testing is just massive.

Tuft testing has been used in aerodynamic testing for a long time. It remains
a brilliant and effective technique.

What you need

All that you need to tuft test is:
• a ball of wool or similar yarn
• a pair of scissors
• some tape to stick the wool to the car’s surface.

My tuft testing kit. Different colour wool is used on different colour paint,
giving good visibility.

To form the tufts, wrap the wool around two or three fingers and then snip
through all the strands at once. Using the ‘two fingers’ approach will give
you shorter tufts that are good for seeing fine detail of flow; the ‘three
fingers’ approach will give you longer tufts that show more general flows.

Normal paper tape sold for masking cars prior to painting works well in
sticking the tufts in place. However, on heavily waxed cars, electrical tape is
better.
Wrap the wool around either two or three fingers and then cut through all
the strands at once. This gives you lots of short tufts – for longer tufts, use
three fingers.

The tufts can be stuck on wherever you wish to see what the airflow is
doing. For example, you may choose to stick tufts only to the rear window
and boot / trunk lid, or you may choose to stick tufts to the side panel of a
car behind the front wheel. In other words, there’s no need to tuft the whole
car if you’re interested in only smaller areas.
Once the area of interest has been tufted, the car is driven on the road or
track and the patterns shown by the tufts photographed or video’d. I prefer
the use of still pics, taking a sequence of photos and then picking the best
single one that is indicative of the tuft pattern. Then I usually crop that pic a
lot. Photographing from the side of the road when the car passes you at ~60
km/h (35 mph) is usually fine.

To do this type of photography, you need a camera that has:

• a fast shutter response, i.e. it takes the pic the instant you press the button
(most digital cameras these days)
• the ability to set the required high shutter speed (most good consumer
cameras and all 'prosumer' cameras)
• the ability to do a sequence of shots rapidly, one after the other (varies lot
between cameras - look for burst mode of, say, 8-10 shots)
• a telephoto lens focal length that retains good resolution (again, most good
consumer cameras and all 'prosumer' cameras, but be wary of digital zooms)

Of course, if you don’t have photographic gear like this, any camera at all is
better than none!

When the tufted car isn’ t moving, all the tufts will hang downwards.
However, once the airflow starts to pass over the car, the tufts come alive!
So how does a test session work? Pick a road where, if possible, there are
few other cars. The tufted car is then driven past you at the agreed speed.
You pan your camera as the car goes past, taking as many pics as possible.
Do at least one run where you simply observe, rather than taking pictures.
Then look at the sequence of pics one by one, getting a feel for the pattern.
For example, one photo may show excellent, attached flow (the tufts all
lined up) while another photo in the same sequence might show a little
separation (say, one or two tufts whirling around). Never look at only one
pic when assessing the flow.

Note that for zero yaw (i.e. no crosswind) testing, the tuft-testing should be
done on a fairly still day. However, it’s also possible to test on days with
strong winds – then you will see what happens to airflow over the car in
these real-world conditions.

In addition to ‘dri veby’ photography, you can also do ‘tracking’

photography where you are in another car, photographing the tufted car. As
your car nears the tufted car, you will often see the airflow pattern change a
little - however this is after all a real-world airflow condition experienced in
normal traffic. To avoid this ‘proximity’ effect, you can again use a telephoto
lens so the test car can be further away from the chase car. If the two cars are
in close proximity, a normal phone camera will be fine.
Tuft testing a rear diffuser. The highlights show separated flow down each
side, despite the presence of the temporary longitudinal strakes. A diffuser is
ineffective in separated flow.

I have seen completely incorrect theories developed by people who had

assumed that they knew where the airflow on a car was going – but they
didn’t. Always tuft test as the first step in any aerodynamic modification.
You will usually be surprised at what you find…
Airflow patterns with tufts
Let’s look now at some airflow patterns revealed by tufting.
For lowest drag, we typically want to see as much attached flow as possible.
However, where attached flow wraps around upper curved surfaces, low
pressures are developed, which in turn can cause lift and drag components.
These two photos show the radical difference in airflow on this Mazda
Astina. When the headlights are down, the airflow is attached – the tufts
lining up in neat rows. But when the headlights are up, the flow is massively
disturbed – not just on the bonnet / hood but also on the side fender. These
are some of the first tuft testing pics I ever took, and when I saw these
results, I was hooked!

This Mazda RX7 shows separated flow behind the wheel on the side panel.
Note the attached airflow from the bumper up onto the bonnet / hood –
almost all cars have attached flow here.
The car in the Mazda wind tunnel shows the same separation behind the
wheel – on-road tuft testing is very accurate.

A drawing of the Mazda (made by artist Dave Heinrich) shows the separated
and attached flows, as determined from tuft testing.
The attached flow over the roof and rear window (one long curve!) of this
Mercedes AMG GT would be creating a lot of lift. To help counteract this, all
versions of the car have at least some type of rear spoiler. Flow is attached
down the side of the car but then separates directly behind the rear wheel –
the wake of the car extends to the full width. [Paul Lawford pic]
Here the airflow pattern on the side window of a Honda Insight was being
assessed. Tufts were stuck on and then a whiteboard marker used to show the
positions of the tufts. The dotted lines show the tuft behaviour in standard
form, and the solid lines show the tuft behaviour when a turning vane had
been added to the A-pillar.
Separated flow on the rear window and boot / trunk lid of this W123
Mercedes. From the tufts, we can see that the airflow does not flow down the
rear window and onto the trunk / boot lid – instead, it separates at the
trailing edge of the roof. In this case, a wing or spoiler mounted on the trunk
/ boot lid will do very little. In contrast, all modern sedans (notchbacks)
have attached flow on the rear window and trunk / boot lid, albeit sometimes
with a small separation bubble at the base of the rear window.
Another pic of the W123 Mercedes. Separation can be seen occurring behind
the wheel and on the window glass behind the A-pillar.
Testing the action of Edgarwit external air curtains positioned ahead of the
front wheels. Look carefully at the flow pattern on the panel behind the
wheel and the door and compare it to….
…this pic. There are distinct but subtle changes, e.g. the bottom tufts are
straighter (not angled downwards), the middle tufts have less up/down
movements and the top tufts are angled upwards. Throttle stop testing
showed a reduction in drag.
Tuft testing a combined rear spoiler / airbrake. Note the attached flow down
the rear hatch and onto the spoiler.
With the spoiler in its airbrake position, flow separates about halfway down
the hatch. Much of the airflow is passing straight over the raised brake –
something confirmed by pressure measurements taken in the middle of the
raised panel.
Tuft testing of the rear window and boot / trunk lid on a Honda Legend
(inset). There is good flow from the roof down onto the rear window but then
some separation occurs at the base of the window towards the centre of the
car. This is called a separation bubble.
Testing was carried out using Airtab vortex generators and, after trialling
several different locations and numbers of vortex generators, this result was
achieved. You can see how the separation bubble is now gone. Incidentally,
this is the only correct use for vortex generators – to reduce flow separation.
Excellent attached flow down the rear hatch. Tuft testing is vastly more
accurate than using rules of thumb, templates or guesswork to determine
airflow behaviour. It shows what is really happening – not what is assumed
to be happening!

Some tuft testing gives results that are quite surprising. Here the lack of
airflow disruption on the bonnet / hood caused by the presence of the
spotlights can be seen. Who’d have guessed that?
Tuft testing vortex generators
Here’s an example of using tuft testing in an aerodynamic modification.

The car was a W212 Mercedes E class and the intent of the modification was
to reduce flow separation around the A-pillars on the side glass. The testing
was of small vortex generators made from rubber wedges.

A W212 E-class Mercedes.

Small rubber doorstops were cut down to form tiny, slightly flexible vortex
generators.
 The vortex
generators in place.
The window tufted.
The results, as shown by whiteboard marker drawn on the inside of the
glass. The solid lines show the variation in tuft position without the vortex
generators – the ‘V’ indicates the angles over which the tufts were fluttering.
The dotted line shows the tufts with the vortex generators in place – they are
much more stable in behaviour and better aligned longitudinally. A good
result.
Chapter 2 – Measuring panel
pressures
The vast majority of aerodynamic forces acting on cars comes through the
action of pressures on panels. (The exception is friction drag.) Therefore, if
we can directly measure those aerodynamic pressures, we can see exactly
what is happening – both with the car standard and with it modified.

The action of airflow over the body creates high and low pressures. In this
CFD simulation, the hotter the colour, the higher the pressure. By using the
techniques in this chapter, you can directly measure these pressures on the
road or track.
The pressures (both above and below atmospheric) that are developed by
aerodynamic flows are very small. Therefore, we cannot use a normal
pressure measuring gauge e.g. a turbo boost gauge or an engine vacuum
gauge. Instead we need to use a gauge that compares two pressures – a
differential pressure gauge. To put this another way, the gauge we use needs
to have two ports, with the display showing the difference between the two
pressures. And it needs to be a very sensitive gauge!

That all sounds like a big ask, but it isn’t really. Such gauges – called
Magnehelic gauges – have been used in the air conditioning and ventilation
industry for many decades. Many thousands of these gauges have been
produced, and they’re available secondhand quite cheaply on eBay. In
addition, differential digital manometers are now also available at low cost.
I’ll come back to both of these in a moment.

Pressure sensing puck

Now, how do we sense pressure on the panel? We use what is called a

pressure measuring puck. This comprises a small disc of metal with a hole in
the middle. The hole, about 1mm in diameter, connects internally to a tube
that projects out the side of the puck.

I made my own pressure measuring puck, starting with some aluminium bar
and small diameter brass tubing sold for use in modelling. I first ground a
flat on the side of the aluminium bar, and then drilled a hole parallel with the
end of the bar in towards the middle. I then drilled the pressure sensing hole
in the end of the bar, going in only so far that the two holes met. The brass
tube was then glued into the side hole using thread locker, and then end of
the bar cut off to form the puck. (Check that the brass tube connects to the
sensing hole and there are no leaks.)
The home-made pressure measuring puck.

If you don’t want to make your own pressure measuring puck, you can buy
them commercially from Scanivalve (distributors in most countries). They’re
not expensive. (Scanivalve call them ‘pressure patches’.)
Commercially available pressure measuring puck from Scanivalve.

In use, the puck is stuck to the surface of the panel using tape. A small
diameter tube then runs from the puck to one of the ports on our gauge.
The puck taped into place to measure pressures behind the A-pillar on the
side window.
Reference pressure

Now, what do we connect to the other port of the gauge – what is our
reference pressure? We cannot just leave that port open to the cabin because
the cabin pressure varies as we drive along.

What I have done in the past is use a sealed vessel, like a tank, as the
reference pressure. As the diagram below shows, the tank can be vented to
atmosphere via the valve, then the valve closed so that the tank pressure acts
as our pressure reference. That is, the pressure we’re measuring on the car’s
panel is compared to the ‘atmospheric pressure’ that we’ve trapped in the
tank.
Using a sealed reservoir as the reference pressure.

This system works quite well but has one significant downside. Any
temperature change in the tank or hoses will cause the readings to drift.
Therefore, it’s common to stop by the side of the road, vent the tank to the
atmosphere, close the valve and then immediately drive to the test speed and
take the reading. The tank also needs to be wrapped in an insulating blanket
and the cabin temperature of the also needs to have car settled. (No jumping
in a cold car and putting on the heater, for example.)
The ‘sealed reservoir’ system. This one uses an old air suspension tank and
Magnehelic gauge.

But there is a better way, and that is rather than use a tank as the pressure
reference, use one port of a pitot tube as the pressure reference. It sounds
complicated and expensive, but it is neither – in fact, cheaper and simpler in
operation than using the pressure tank approach.

Pitot tubes are covered in more detail in Chapter 3, but in brief, a pitot tube
has two ports. One faces directly into the incoming airflow and measures the
pressure as the airflow is brought to a halt. The other measures normal
atmospheric pressure, and this is called the static port.

We can use this static port to provide our pressure reference, and in use it is
much more consistently accurate than the sealed reservoir. However, there is
a trick – and that is that the pitot tube must be mounted at the front of the
bonnet / hood, on a pole at least 800mm high.
A pitot tube. One of the static ports (there are usually multiple static ports)
can be seen on the side of the tube.
The pitot tube provides a reference pressure and must be mounted at the
front of the car on a pole at least 800mm high. The pole is attached to the
car via a suction cap and mount (below).
Gauge

As described, Magnehelic gauges are widely available and are very effective
in measuring car aero pressures. In fact, in many ways I prefer them over the
apparently more sophisticated digital manometers. One advantage of the
Magnehelic gauge is that the gauge is damped and so, where pressures are
oscillating, it gives average pressures. However, a disadvantage is that a
Magnehelic gauge works over a more limited scale and so if you are
measuring a wide range of pressures, more than one gauge may be needed.
In car aerodynamics, we are typically measuring maximum pressures of
around 1-2 inches of water (250 – 500 Pa). This assumes a road testing
speed of about 80 km/h (~50 mph). If you intend testing at very high speeds,
this figure will rise – double the speed and it quadruples the pressure.

A Magnehelic gauge – this one reads from 0-1 inch of water.

If you are selecting a digital manometer, ensure that it can read down to
fractions of an inch of water e.g. to 0.1 inch of water. At the time of writing,
Amazon sell a range of digital manometers (e.g. the PerfectPrime AR1890)
that are well priced and sufficiently accurate. Note: be careful when using a
digital manometer to measure wake pressures (pressures in separated flow).
Because of the turbulence in these flows, the reading may dance around a
lot, making it hard to get an accurate measurement.
Measuring pressures

Pressures can be measured anywhere on and under the car. A typical process,
when using a pitot tube as the reference pressure, is as follows:

• Mount the puck on the panel of interest, holding it in place with tape. For
example, on the roof.
• Run the sensing hose from the puck to the lowpressure port on the gauge.
• Mount the pitot tube pole, with the tube facing directly forwards.
• Connect the other side of the gauge to static port of the pitot tube.
• Drive the car at the designated test speed and record the gauge reading.
• Repeat the run in the opposite direction.
• Average the two readings.

Pressures on the upper body of a Mazda RX7. In those days, manufacturers

weren’t so interested in undercar pressures, but to reduce lift we certainly
are!

If the Magnehelic gauge needle moves the wrong way, or the digital gauge
shows positive pressures, swap the hoses to the measuring device. Note that
most pressure you will measure are low pressures, that is, less than
atmospheric (as for this example on the roof of the car).
Exceptions include at the stagnation zone at the very front of the car, at the
base of the windscreen, and in front of rear spoilers – these pressures will be
positive.
The Perfect Prime digital manometer is available from Amazon at a low
price. The car vacuum hose dampers were added to the sensing hoses to
reduce oscillations in the reading.
Over-car and under-car pressure readings

Here is an example of the pressure readings taken at 80 km/h (50 mph) on

my Honda Insight. The readings were taken using the pitot tube static port
reference. It is important to note that the underside of the car is heavily
modified, using front and rear undertrays and with the rear undertray
incorporating a diffuser. There are only two positive pressure readings – at
the very front of the car in the stagnation zone, where the air is brought to a
halt and so maximum pressure is recorded, and at the base of the
windscreen. Note that whenever the airflow wraps around any of the upper
curves, a low pressure is developed. Low pressure on the upper surfaces of
the car are creating lift; those under the car are creating downforce. The low
pressures under the car result from the special undertrays. In fact, overall,
this car develops measured downforce. The low pressure behind the car is
the pressure in the wake.
This is the same data (except for stagnation and wake pressures that are
excluded) but shown diagrammatically. The length of the arrow is
proportional to the pressure, and the direction of the arrow shows the
direction of the resulting force.
Pressure readings in rear spoiler development

Different height flat plate spoilers were trialled on the rear of the Honda.

The spoilers were mocked-up from thin plywood, taped into place.
0
-20
-40
-60
-80
-100
-120
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Spoiler height (mm)
This graph shows the measured increase in pressures on the last third of the
hatch with increasing spoiler height. As can be seen, negative pressures (and
so lift) were reduced to near-zero with a 50mm high rear spoiler.
Pressure readings in rear separation edge
development
Separation edges either side at the rear of the car reduce airflow
‘wraparound’, and so increase pressures acting at the rear corners of the car,
reducing drag.
The airflow wrapround can be seen here – there is no standard separation
edge on this car.
A trial separation edge changed the behaviour of the flow. But would it
change the measured pressures?
With the trial separation edge in place, at 80 km/h (50 mph) the pressure
measured at the puck location rose from -30 Pa to -17 Pa, an increase in
pressure of 43 per cent.
The final version that uses a commercially available lip spoiler
The final version, that uses a commercially available lip spoiler.
Pressure readings when optimising downforce
The Honda that you have seen many times on these pages runs full front and
rear undertrays. The car also runs driver-adjustable, variable height air
suspension. Testing was carried out to see what ride height gave the lowest
undercar pressures (ie giving best downforce).

The rear undertray incorporates an effective diffuser (the rear slopes

upwards).
The new front undertray is about three times the area of the original.

The lowest undercar pressures were recorded with a front ride height of
110mm and a rear ride height of 130mm. Going lower made little difference
to the pressures. This is a good example of the sort of development that
pressure measurement makes easy.
Chapter 3 – Using pitot tubes
As briefly described in the previous chapter, a pitot tube is a device that
senses two pressures. The difference in these pressures gives us an indication
of airflow speed – the higher the pressure difference, the higher the airflow
speed.

Miniature pitot tubes are sold quite cheaply for use on model aircraft.

If you have bought either a Magnehelic gauge or digital manometer, you

already have the means of measuring pitot pressures. The static port
connects to the low-pressure input of the gauge, and the dynamic port (the
one that faces forward) connects to the high-pressure port.

If you want to calibrate the measured pressure against speed, record the
pressure difference on a still day, using the car’s speedo as the reference and
drawing up a table of pressures versus speeds. When doing this, ensure the
pitot tube is mounted well away from he car’s body.

On a car’s body, where airflow speeds are highest, pressures will generally
be lowest.

A pitot tube not only measures air speed, but it is also very sensitive to the
direction of airflow. When the pitot tube is pointed straight into the airflow,
the readings will be highest, and as the pitot tube gradually points away from
the airflow, the readings will fall.

So by using a pitot tube, you can easily find the areas of high and low speed
flow (e.g. under the car), and the direction of airflow, even away from the
car’s body (e.g. when setting a wing’s angle of attack against the actual
airflow direction).

Using a pitot tube to optimise a rear diffuser

As previous covered, wool tufts show very clearly where there is separated
and attached flow. For a rear diffuser (and of course the whole undertray) to
work well, we want attached flow. However, it is difficult to see tufts under a
car, even on the sloping part of the rear diffuser. On the other hand, relative
airflow speed readings are easily taken if a pitot tube is placed under the car.

Tufts on a rear diffuser – very hard to see when the car is moving.
The pitot tube, mounted to the undertray diffuser on a small block of wood to
space it out of the boundary layer.
The pressures, where a greater pressure difference indicates a higher
airspeed. As can be seen here, the side of the diffuser had little or no flow.
Adding long strakes improved the situation.
Chapter 4 – Measuring lift and
downforce
As we have seen, it is the distribution of pressures on the top and bottom
surfaces of the car that determine whether car has lift (nearly all road cars),
is neutral or has downforce (nearly all competition cars). But trying to work
it out by measuring pressures is difficult: not only do you need to do a lot of
readings, you also have to work out what component of each force is
vertical, and how much area it is working over. It’s much easier to just
measure the outcome – the amount of lift/downforce on the front and rear
axles.

As described briefly in Chapter 1, we do that by measuring ride height. A car

that grows in ride height as you go faster has lift; one that gets lower has
downforce. On cars with soft suspension this change in ride height is easily
able to be measured at 100 km/h (~60 mph). On cars with stiff suspension,
the springs will either need to be temporarily swapped for softer ones, or the
speed will need to be much higher.

Ride height sensors

The cheapest and best ride height sensors are those fitted as standard
equipment to cars with air suspension. In that application they feed
information back to the air suspension controller to allow it to keep ride
height at the required level. These sensors are simple (often just a
potentiometer like a throttle position sensor), rugged, weather-sealed and
cheap. (Or at least, certainly a lot cheaper than a dedicated motorsport or
industrial equivalent.)

I use the sensors fitted to P38 Range Rover vehicles, but if you’re happy to
work out your own colour codes, etc, other sensors can be used.

The sensor is connected so that as the ride height changes, the shaft of the
sensor rotates. There must be no slop in the linkages, and typically you will
need to use two small ball-joints to transfer the suspension movement to the
sensor. Ensure that the sensor stays within its linear range when the
suspension moves over its maximum distance.

Suspension height sensors from a P38 Range Rover. These are simple
sensors that work like throttle position sensors. On these sensors the output
is linear only when the arm is moved within the range shown by the white
dots on the sensors.

At least two sensors are normally installed, one on the front suspension and
one on the back.

We now have a means of sensing suspension height

- but there is still an issue. As you’d expect, the suspension ride height is
constantly changing as the car passes over bumps. We need to filter out the
bumps so we can see if the average ride height is changing. This averaging
can be achieved by a simple electronic circuit.

Let’s go back to the sensor fo r a moment. The Range Rover sensor is just a
pot, so if we ground one side of the pot (brown wire) and feed a regulated
voltage (e.g. 5V) to the other side of the pot (blue wire) then the voltage on
the output (green wire) will vary with ride height. The regulated 5V can be
picked up from the engine ECU, or provided by a 12V adaptor like a phone
charger. (Just ensure the voltage output of the phone charger doesn’t vary
with alternator rpm!)

Now what do we do with this signal? The diagram on the next page shows
what we do. We feed the signal through a 10K resistor and then a 1 meg pot
wired as a variable resistor. Two 2.2µF capacitors (note their polarisation)
vary in charge depending on the signal output, and this smooths the voltage
coming from the height sensor. We then read the signal using a good quality
multimeter. The smoothing time can be varied by rotating the pot, being able
to be varied from nearly nothing to about 15 seconds. In use, we set the pot
so that the measured signal settles in a time period that matches our speed
and available road.

(Of course, if you have a motorsport digital dash in your car, you can just
feed the height sensor signal straight into it and then use a mathematical
smoothing function in the dash software to give you a stable reading.)

If you don’t know anything about electronics , any electronics hobbyist or

repair person should be able to make the circuit up in a very short time. The
cost of the parts is nearly nothing.

Once the change in ride height with speed has been tested, the actual
downforce or lift can be measured. For example, let’s say that the measured
suspension average height (expressed in volts of sensor output) changes
from 3.75 to 3.65V and this is showing that ride height decreases with speed
(ie there is downforce). To find out how much downforce is occurring, all we
need to do is to add weights over the axle line until, when the car is driven at
slow speed, the ride height has decreased an equal amount. (On cars with
soft springing and damping, this can be done statically by adding the weights
and then bouncing the suspension.)
The top trace shows the voltage signal coming from the height sensor (here
just simulated) while the botom trace shows the smoothed output.
The circuit that smooths the output of the suspension height sensor, allowing
the average height to be seen. The signal is monitored using a multimeter.
Smoothing time is adjustable by rotating the 1 meg pot.
Measuring the effectiveness of a rear spoiler and
wing
The effectiveness of a rear spoiler and wing on a 2002 Subaru Impreza was
evaluated. The car was tested in three configurations: with no wing or
spoiler, with the standard spoiler and with the STi wing.

The car, a Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS. The rear spoiler shown here is standard.
The STi version’s combined rear wing and spoiler.
The ride height sensor attached to one side of the rear suspension. Its output
was fed into the smoothing circuit shown on the previous page.
All the graphs are to the same scale, with sensor voltage on the vertical axis
(higher voltage = higher ride height) and speed in km/h on the bottom axis.
The car without wing or spoiler clearly develops rear lift – ride height
increases. When the standard spoiler is refitted, all the lift is cancelled – ride
height changes little with speed. The STi wing clearly provides downforce,
causing the suspension to be compressed as the car was driven faster. Note
that in each case a slow speed run (20 km/h) was done to establish the
baseline for that configuration. (At 20 km/h, the aero forces are near zero.)
Measuring downforce of a hatch-mounted wing
If you have a car where the wing is mounted on a hatch or boot / trunk, there
is a very simple (nonelectronic!) way of measuring how much downforce it
is creating.

I had this true aerodynamic profile wing (GOE222) mounted on the rear
hatch of my car. The wing’s angle of attack is easily adjusted.
I placed some springs on the hatch’s rubbe r bump stops, so that the hatch
(with wing attached) was held a little open.
I then added a mark (pink tape) on the rear upright window and placed a
vertical scale inside the car, that I could see in the rear vision mirror. The
greater the downforce, the more the mark moved down the scale as the hatch
springs compressed.

I then used a bubble level and scale to measure the wing reference angle.
 The
relationship between wing angle and the amount of generated downforce can
be seen here.
I then loaded the wing with bottles of water to give the maximum spring
deflection achieved at 100 km/h (60 mph). The measured downforce? 8kg
(about 18lb). The same approach can of course be taken with a lot more
radical profiles than this wing.
Chapter 4 – Measuring changes in
drag
The best way to measure changes in drag is the throttle-stop method. With
this method, engine power is much reduced e.g. to 15 per cent. The car’s top
speed with this reduced power is then accurately measured. The
aerodynamic change is made, and the car’s top speed is again measured. If
the car goes faster with the same engine power, it’s because the drag has
been slower, drag has increased. reduced. If it goes The chosen engine

power should be sufficient to allow the car to reach the open-road speed
limit, e.g. 110 km/h (~70 mph).

The only downside of this technique is if the car runs electronic throttle
control where throttle blade opening is not always proportional to pedal
position. For example, a hybrid car can control the throttle blade to be fully
open at a pedal position of much less than 100 per cent. So if you have a car
with electronic throttle control, you must first use an OBD scanner or similar
to determine that a small, fixed throttle position does in fact result in a fixed
throttle blade position.

I’ll now assume in this chapter that on the car you are testing, a fixed pedal
position gives a fixed throttle blade position.
A simple throttle stop that is placed under the accelerator pedal. Make sure
it cannot be dislodged and go under the brake pedal!

An easy way of making a throttle stop is to get a small piece of wood and
place a wood screw in it, screwing it in sufficiently that when the assembly
is placed under the throttle, throttle opening is limited to a small amount.
You can then see what the top speed of the car is in top gear (eg 5th or 6th)
and ensure it is near the speed limit. (This testing must be done on the open
road – city speed limits will probably not be high enough.)

The throttle position needs to be held accurately at the one position, and I
advise that you use an OBD scanner (or just measure the output of the
throttle position sensor) to ensure that the throttle position is being held. For
example, leaning hard on the throttle with the stop under it may compress
the carpet enough that throttle position changes.
You should have a read-out of throttle position to confirm that it is being
held at a fixed, small value (and not 86 per cent as shown here!).

You can of course also fit a stop at the throttle body if that is easier and / or
more secure.

So you have the engine power limited to a small amount via the throttle stop
– what then? You then need to measure top speed, preferably by digital GPS.
You will need to have a straight road of sufficient length that if you enter the
straight at (say) 100 km/h, by the end of the straight the top speed has
settled. For example, it may have settled at 98 km/h. Do some more runs (in
this testing they can be in the same direction) and see how consistent the top
speed is. If it varies a great deal (e.g. more than a few percent) there is
probably something wrong with your testing. For example, you may be
entering the straight at different speeds, not maintaining the fixed throttle
position, or other traffic has changed from run to run.

Once you have achieved a consistent top speed in the one aerodynamic
configuration, do some more runs, but this time with all the windows down.
You should then be able to consistently record a top speed that is now clearly
slower due to the increased aerodynamic drag. If you cannot measure the
drag change from windows up / windows down (and in my experience coast-
downs at normal road speeds cannot), then you will not be able to measure
even significant changes in drag.

Here are some examples of the sort of data you can record.
Honda Insight Gen 1 equipped with:

• electronic height-adjustable air suspension

• full ABS undertrays front and back
• rear diffuser
• rear acrylic fins
• rear GOE222 profile aluminium wing
• MoTeC dash including 10Hz GPS speedo
• No IMA – turbo, water/air intercooled and MoTeC ECU

Windows open / windows closed:

Window status Speed (km/h) Closed 104

Open 98

And what is the change in drag that this corresponds to? If we assume that
the torque output of engine changes little with variation in top speed rpm,
drag coefficient changes with square of velocity. Therefore, (V1/V2)^2. Or
(104/98)^2 which is 1.12, or a an increase in drag of 12 per cent. (This is
well within the ballpark of quoted drag changes of cars with windows up /
windows down.)

Suspension ride height altered:

Ride height setting Speed (km/h) Lowest 105

Standard 104
Highest 102
The Honda at its lowest ride height and (below) at its highest.

The difference from the highest to the lowest gives us a drag variation of 6
per cent.
Rear wing angle (the same wing we saw a few pages ago):

Wing angle (degrees) Speed (km/h)

+10 103
+5 103.5
+3 101
-5 99
-10 101
-50 96
-80 (air brake!) 92
So moving the wing from its normal to its airbrake position increased drag
by 25 per cent. Therefore, if the drag coefficient (Cd) was 0.25, it would rise
to about 0.32.

Top speed in throttle-stop configuration plotted against rear wing angle. You
can see that wing angles of plus/minus 10 degrees changes drag relatively
little but in the air brake position, drag has gone up a lot.
The wing in its normal position and (below) in its air brake position.
The advantages of throttle stop testing is that it:

• can be done legally

• is a real-world test of drag – e.g. can be done on windy days
• is quick for before/after results
• is able to detect drag changes down to about 2 per cent
• can quantify changes in Cd

The disadvantages are that it:

• is best with a mechanical throttle

• needs a straight, flat road
• is best if aero changes can be made quickly
• if it is being done on different days, engine torque at throttle-stop position
must be the same
• won’t be as accurate as long-term mileage measurement
Chapter 5 – The process
Now that you ae equipped with a wide range of test techniques, how do you
employ them? Let’s go through two typical car modification scenarios – one
where you want to reduce lift (and preferably gain downforce), and the other
where drag reduction is the key aim.

Reducing lift

The first step in reducing lift is to tuft test the car. This will show you where
you have attached and separated flows. Attached flow that wraps around
upper curves gives lift. This means, for example, that placing a fence (a
lateral flat plate that projects vertically) across the roof will reduce lift – but
at the expense of a lot of drag.

Let ’s imagine that we have attached flow on all the upper surfaces – very
likely on cars of the last 20 years or so. In these cars (and it doesn’t matter
whether they’re notchbacks [sedans) fastbacks or squarebacks [wagons or
hatches with near vertical tails]), adding a rear spoiler will likely increase
pressures on the upper rear panels, reducing lift.

So the next step is to measure pressures on these panels, trialling different

height rear spoilers until we achieve the increase in rear pressures that we
want. For example, on the boot (trunk) lift of a sedan, hatch of a fastback or
rear roof of a squareback, we want to see an increase in pressures.
(Sometimes this is most easily thought of as a reduction in low pressures.)

After fitting a rear spoiler, the best way of reducing lift is to work under the
car. A full-length undertray with sloping rear diffuser will work best, but if
that’s not possible, fit just a front undertray. Again, measuring pressures
under the car will quickly show you if you’re going in the right direction.

Unless the middle section of the car is already fairly smooth and flat, a rear
undertray with diffuser will not be very effective. You can easily see how
effective it is likely to be by mocking-up one out of plywood or similar and
measuring the undercar pressures on the rear undertray.
Testing different angle rear spoilers. Note the clamps that allow the spoiler
angle to be easily adjusted. Fins and spoiler are made from plywood for
testing. Tufts and pressure measurement are occurring here.

Optimise the shapes under the car until you measure the lowest pressures.

At this stage, or even before if you like, you can measure ride height front
and rear and see how you’re going. For stability, typically you want less rear
than front lift. (Or, to put this another way, more rear downforce than front
downforce.) However, that also depends on the rest of the car for example,
an understeering front-wheel drive will benefit a lot from increased front
downforce.

You can also experiment with different front and rear ride heights until lift is
most reduced (or downforce most increased).

And what about a rear wing? Use pitot tube testing to work out how much
above the car the wing needs to be positioned to be in freestream airflow (i.e.
air moving as fast as the car). Then optimise wing angle by measuring rear
ride height. Note that many people seem to run wings in a stalled condition
(i.e. they act as large spoilers) so you might also want to do some throttle-
stop drag testing, or tuft the wing, so you can better see the drag/downforce
balance. Remember, for lowest lift (or maximum downforce) you simply
want this: highest pressures on upper panels and lowest pressures under the
car.

Testing of longitudinal strakes either side of diffuser. They worked – but

these plywood ones were impractically deep. Shorter rubber replacements
don’t scrape on the road but also didn’t reduce pressures as much.
Testing a box cavity extension for changes in drag. Pressures were measured
on rear panels of car. It increased these pressures – but only by a little.

As with reducing lift, a full-length undertray is good when chasing lower

drag. Here, rather than measuring pressures, go straight to throttle-stop
testing.

Reducing drag

The first step in reducing drag is to tuft test the car. Again, this will show
you where you have attached and separated flows.

In most cars, we want as much attached flow as possible. So for example, if

flow is separating down the side of the car behind the wheels, can we fit
smooth wheel covers and then get better flow attachment behind the wheels?
If flow is separating part way down the rear window, can we add vortex
generators and gain flow attachment? Tuft testing will show this.
We also want clean separation at the trailing edges of the car. We can use
pressure measurements to see if there are suction peaks at these edges – ones
we can get ride of by fitting extensions.

Talking of pressure measurements, any low pressures on rear vertical

surfaces, or inclined surfaces (like rear pillars) will increase drag. So if we
can increase these pressures, drag is likely to be reduced. A small rear
spoiler on a fastback or notchback may therefore reduce drag – and we can
use throttle-stop testing to se if this improvement is measurable.

Reducing drag and lift! And want if you want to reduce both drag and lift?

The test and measurement techniques we’ve covered in this book also allow
you to do that. Sometimes, though, it will be more of a juggle – too high a
rear spoiler will start to increase drag as well as reducing lift. Too great a
negative angle of attack of a wing will start to really impact drag. However,
your testing will show when these things are starting to occur.

Measured downforce and reduced drag from front and rear undertrays, rear
increase wake size), front spoiler (that doesn’t Edgarwit external air

curtains and rear fins and separation edges.